by Lola James
With my tears blurring my vision, I looked at him skeptically as I thought about me trying to seduce him. I don’t remember that.
“So are you a sanguinarian?”
“What? No.” He looked as confused as I felt.
“People who drink human blood are sanguinarians!”
“I know that, but what I am is far worse than that.” The look of shame on his face made him look remorseful but I feared him nonetheless.
“Well, what are you?” He didn’t answer, but his expression was enough. I battled to keep the folklore myths out, but I lost when a whisper escaped my mouth: “Vampire.” I clapped my hands over my mouth in shock. “That’s just a myth,” I added. “Right?”
He stopped his pacing as he turned toward me and crouched down; then he simply smiled. As he grinned, the whites of his eyes went completely black and his canines extended into razor sharp points, making them longer than his other teeth. His completely black eyes met mine. Dread washed over me, and I felt faint.
“Does this look like a myth to you?” Ben said, and I screamed. I had gotten myself into this situation, and now I was about to die.
“I told you, I will not harm you.” Ben retracted his razor-sharp fangs and replaced them with his dimpled-filled, genuine smile.
“Don’t do that EVER again,” I said breathlessly. My heart pounded. I still felt very afraid but I needed to play it cool until I could escape.
“I will not. Now, please calm down; your heart beating that fast makes me thirsty for your blood.”
I stopped breathing altogether, when he said that. But I had too many questions in my head that I wanted to ask; I blurted the first out before I could stop it.
“Is that why you became a nurse, so you could drink blood from the patients? Did you kill Ms. Blanke?” I put my hand over my chest at the thought.
“No! I am a nurse to help people. Plus, there is a blood bank in the hospital that supplies me, hence the juice.” I noted he conveniently left out Ms. Blanke that’s when a tear rolled down my cheek.
“But… Ms. Blanke?” I choked out.
“I did not harm Ms. Blanke!” He stated as a matter-of-fact. I sighed in relief that he didn’t.
He stood calmly and I saw my opportunity to leave. “Well, can I go now? I mean, there’s no reason for me to stick around if I’m not your victim, I mean dinner, right?” I grabbed my bag again.
“Not yet; I have to clear your memories of this. I cannot have you telling everyone that you just met a vampire.”
“What do you mean ‘clear my memories’?”
“I can make you forget this entire conversation and about vampires,” he extended his hand to me.
“No, I don’t want you to do that to me. I want to remember that you are a vampire.” I pulled my hand back from him.
He shook his head. “I have to; even you cannot know what I am.”
“Why?”
“You could be killed for knowing this!” The trepidation in his eyes seemed genuine.
“Killed? Who would kill me?”
“He will have you killed.” He fears for me, not himself. But then again, he was a vampire.
“Who is he, and why are you afraid? You’re a vampire!”
Ben began to pace the floor again before he spoke. “Hades! He is more powerful than I and he owns the souls of the dead.”
I relaxed, almost amused at his fright. “Wait a minute, Hades as in the Greek god?”
“Yes, Toni. This is not a laughing matter.” I wasn’t sure if he used Hades as a ploy to calm me down or not but it worked. Here he is a vampire afraid of a villainous storybook character.
He was so serious I wanted to laugh more, but I stopped myself. “Okay, first of all, Hades is a mythical god. He is not real.”
“Toni, until five minutes ago, you did not believe that vampires existed.”
He had a point, but Hades? Come on. “Okay, now you sit down. I may not know much about your world, but I do know a little something about Greek mythology and the gods.”
He sat in the same chair from which I had just arisen. “You know of the gods?”
“Yes, and I know that Hades won’t kill me. He can’t even step foot on earth.” I was certain of that much.
“Toni, you do not understand. Of course, he will not kill you; he has other creatures that will.”
“No, he won’t. And I still don’t want to forget what I know about this, or about you.”
“I do not think this is a good idea.” Ben shook his head and he threw his hands up in defeat.
Then it dawned on me. “Wait a minute! Is that how Joanna died?” As the words left my mouth, Ben was gone from the study. Less than a minute later, he returned, wearing a shirt and pants, holding a small box in his hand.
“To answer your question, yes, Joanna was a vampire. But unlike most vampires, she never lost her humanity. She befriended a witch who put a spell on her so that she could walk in the sun.” He pulled out an old black and white photo from the small box. I looked at the worn picture and was shocked to see a woman who could be my twin, wearing a nurse’s uniform.
“So, I don’t get it . . . how did she die?”
“Joanna saved lives all over the world. She cared for people. She did not kill. Hades hated the fact that Joanna saved lives rather than take them, since he owns all the souls of the dead. He used a witch to remove her spell and she burned to death in the rays of the sun.” He looked at the picture. I placed my hand on his to comfort him as our eyes met.
“When did this happen?”
“Fifty years ago.”
I sighed as it dawned on me that Ben really was a vampire. I was uneasy because I’d only been exposed to the myths of vampires as soulless creatures of the night that preyed on women. I tilted my head to the side and looked at Ben’s somber expression. I believed he would not harm me. He was like Joanna. He cared.
“Ben, how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight; why?”
“No, when were you born?”
“April 12, 1813.”
I gasped. “That would make you almost two hundred years old.”
“Yes, that sounds correct.” He looked confused, but this was all new to me. Here I was, standing in a room with a two-hundred-year-old person. This was unbelievable.
“So you became a vampire?”
“In the summer of 1841, in New York City.”
“And Joanna?”
“When I met her, she was already a vampire; that was about a century ago.”
“Wow. Did you love her?”
“I did love her, but not as you think; she was more of a sister to me.” He took Joanna’s picture from me, kissed it, and put it back into the small box.
“Don’t you see? This is too important for you to make me forget!”
“No, it is important that you do forget; if Hades would kill a vampire, he would not hesitate in killing a human.”
“But—” I started, but he turned and left the room. I heard his voice from the hall.
“Come now, the sun has gone down. I can take you home now.”
“No, I want to talk more about this!” He didn’t answer, and then suddenly I was in his arms.
His dark eyes captured mine. I was weightless and warm as a muffled voice said, “tell no one.” Ben’s eyes were still locked on mine I felt breathless as he turned his head away and headed to the stairs. My legs were a little wobbly but I used a chair to hold me up.
“Come now; let me take you to your house.”
“You did it. You made me forget, didn’t you?” I complained as I walked down the staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw a flash go from the living room to the kitchen and I ran to keep up.
“No; if I did, you would not have asked me that question.”
“So why do I feel like I forgot something about the whole vampire subject?” I asked as I stopped in the doorway of the garage.
“I have no clue.” He walked past me and stepped into the lit garage.
He walked over to his motorcycle and effortlessly picked it up placing it close to the kitchen door. Then he flipped a switch near the door seal that made the rear wall move. I stood in awe, as what I thought was a wall opened as a second and secret garage door. It slowly opened and exposed the back of a truck. In a flash, he had me over his shoulder and walked towards the truck.
“Wait! You are going to work tonight; why aren’t you dressed?”
“I will dress at your house.”
“You’re not telling me something. And stop doing that disappearing thing; it scares me,” I protested as he sat me down on the passenger side of the truck and a black bag sat in the drivers seat. He walked around the front end, and moved the bag to the back seat of the cab. I realized that, I truly knew nothing about Ben.
As he backed the truck out, he looked at me, and then smiled. When we were on the street, he turned in the direction of my house as though he already knew how to get there. I asked, looking straight ahead and trying to conceal my worry.
“Do you know where I live?” “No, but I know that it is not anywhere back that way.” He glanced at me with a reassuring smile on his face.
“And why not?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“Your reaction to me when I told you I lived in Pacific Heights.”
“You’re right, but don’t judge me like that,” I said, turning my body away from him. “Turn left at the light, then right one block after that.”
He did as I told him, and made no sound as we pulled up to my apartment complex. I turned back to him and his handsome smiling face melted away the petty concern and anger I was feeling.
“I am sorry.” His words were what I wanted to hear.
“Nice truck, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Ben parked his truck in my spot in the underground parking lot before we both got out. We rode the elevator in silence to my floor and walked into my tiny studio before either of us spoke. He stood in the doorway as I pointed out the bathroom for him to change. I turned and noticed him still at the door.
“Why are you standing there come in silly?” He stepped over the threshold with my words.
“I couldn’t physically until you invited me in.” I nodded, having heard that in some myth about vampires having to be invited in a home; he walked around, looking at my various degrees and pictures that hung on the walls.
“So what did you do? Why do I feel different about vampires?” I asked as I sat on my unmade bed.
“Your name is Antonia?” he asked, never taking his eyes off my numerous degrees.
“Yes; now answer my question,” I was irritated.
“I just made you promise not to say anything. Why do you have a Greek middle name, Nikos?” He sat in the chair across from my unmade bed.
“My father was Greek, and that was his last name. But I guess I was born before my parents were married, so I have my mother’s last name.” I took off the shoes I’d been wearing all night.
“That is why you know so much about the gods?”
“Yes and no; I took a class in college. Now, less about me and more about you!” I pointed at him, determined to get answers.
“Trust me, Antonia, the less you know the better.” He stood up and walked to the bag that he’d brought in from the truck.
“But—” He cut me off with a look that made me stop with the questioning for a while.
“Where is your shower?”
I pointed him in the direction of my bathroom. “There are towels in the cabinet.” He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, and I went into my kitchen to find some food. The best I could find was a Cup-O-Noodles; I filled it with water and put it in the microwave.
I heard the shower start as the three minutes on the microwave counted down. My eyes went directly to his black bag on the floor. I walked over to the bag, looked back at the bathroom door, and finally gave in to my temptation, slowly unzipping the bag as I looked over my shoulder every few seconds.
The bag held clothes and shoes. And under them, a big chrome gun and thousands of dollars in cash.
The microwave beeped and I gasped and pushed the bag away from me, then pulled it back to put the items back in order.
“What are you doing?” Ben asked, with water dripping from his body and a small towel wrapped around him that barely covered the parts I was hoping to see. I looked up with my mouth open, caught like a kid with her hand in the cookie jar.
“I—I just wanted to see what was in your bag.”
He tightened the towel around his waist. “I see that. Did you find anything interesting?” He came toward me.
“No, not really. Just a gun and a lot of money,” I folded my arms across my chest.
He took the bag and zipped it back up. “Is that what you were looking for?”
“No, but it’s enough.” I went to the microwave to get my Cup-O-Noodles out but I wasn’t done talking about what I found.
“Very well,” he replied, and turned and walked back to the bathroom.
“Hey, that’s it? That’s your explanation for a gun and cash in your bag?” I slammed the microwave door and followed him into the bathroom.
“You didn’t ask for an explanation.” He dropped the towel from his waist and hung it up as he walked into the shower, revealing a perfect vampire rear end. My eyes descended but I wouldn’t let his behind interrupt this argument.
“Well, I need an explanation, please,” I shouted.
“I have a gun with wooden bullets to kill any vampires that might try to kill me — or you, now that you know — and the cash is in case we need to leave in a hurry,” he shrugged.
“We? Who said anything about us leaving together?” I balled up my fist, screaming at him through the glass.
“Antonia, you know too much already. You will die soon if I do not protect you,” he said.
“Oh, back to this Hades nonsense and his evil plan to kill me.”
The shower stopped and he grabbed the towel he hung previously on a shower hook. I blinked, and he was in front of me as water dripped off him.
“Look, I know that you do not believe that Hades will kill you for your knowledge of vampires’ existence, but he will. I told you; now I have to keep you safe.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You asked me not to make you forget about vampires’ existence, and I did not. So now, I have to make sure that you do not die. Now get in the shower, or we will be late for work.”
I had no argument; but damn, he was sexy when he was angry. I did exactly as he said, but I was not going to let him take care of me. I never had, and I would not start today, letting a man, er, vampire take care of me. I just needed to figure this all out.
CHAPTER FIVE
We arrived at work minutes before eight. Dawn’s bright smile was waiting in the locker room to greet me when I arrived.
“Well?” Dawn asked as I opened my locker.
“Well what?”
“Well, what happened this morning?” She folded her arms across her chest. I thought, Oh, I found out Ben was a vampire, but I didn’t dare say that; I mean, I couldn’t.
“Nothing,” I said in a high-pitched tone.
“You’re lying, T.” She stomped away from me toward Ben. “Since she doesn’t want to tell me, you can. It’s obvious that something happened,” she insisted as I ran over to her side.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. We never made it to my place until this evening.” I smiled a deceitful smile as Dawn’s eyes sparkled and her hand covered her mouth.
“I knew it!” she whispered.
“You were right; Ben and I have something special, all right.” I looked at Ben just as Kevin appeared on the other side of him.
“So it’s okay for you to tell everyone that you’re sleeping with this nurse here, but it’s not okay for me to tell anyone about you and me, Toni?” Kevin was visibly angry, so much so his usual perfectly tanned skin was the color of a beet. Ben on the other hand looked like he was a
bout to flip into full vampire mode. I moved in between the two of them, hoping Ben would not hurt me to get to Kevin.
“No, Kevin, I never said I slept with Ben — or you — but thanks for broadcasting my personal business for me.” I looked up at Kevin’s usually piercing green eyes, which now had an amber ring around them. Ben also noticed the change, and put his hand on my shoulder. I put my hand over his, sending Kevin off the deep end as he stormed out of the locker room without another word.